COFFIN, WALTER (1784 - 1867), colliery pioneer

Name: Walter Coffin
Date of birth: 1784
Date of death: 1867
Parent: Walter Coffin
Gender: Male
Occupation: colliery pioneer
Area of activity: Business and Industry
Author: Robert Thomas Jenkins

Born 1784, the second son of Walter Coffin, tanner, of Bridgend, Glamorganshire. While prospecting in the Rhondda valley for bark, he became interested in coal, and in 1806 bought Dinas Rhondda farm, opening a coal level there in 1807, which he connected with Gyfeillon (see Griffiths, Richard) by tramroad, thus enabling his coal to reach the canal at Treforest. In 1810 he took a mining lease on other lands at Dinas, and sank pits there in 1815 and 1832 - he worked 'Rhondda no. 1' and 'Rhondda no. 3' seams. Though a director of the Taff Vale Railway in 1836, he opposed its extension up the Rhondda valley, having no opinion of the future prospects of that valley and believing that its output could be adequately handled by tram and canal.

From 1852 to 1857 he was M.P. for Cardiff. He died at Llandaff Court 15 February 1867.

Coffin was a man of advanced views in theology. His father was the sole surviving trustee of the 'Old Meeting' at Bridgend when (soon after 1806) dissensions arose there; and Coffin was in this way enabled in 1816 to secure the election of John James (1779 - 1864) as pastor - the Old Meeting thus becoming Unitarian. At Dinas, too, Coffin's influence afforded Unitarianism an opportunity for a time, the works medical officer, Evan Davies, being a supporter of that cause.

Author

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/

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